The Associated Press reported that a truck driver working for a contractor on the Grassy Mountain Fire in eastern Oregon died Saturday. Carolyn Chad, a BLM spokesperson, said said Kevin Hall, from Ontario, Oregon, apparently suffered a medical issue while he was working for a bulldozer contractor. Mr. Hall was the driver of the low boy truck that transported the equipment to the fire. The dozer was assisting in the rehab of fire lines.
After he was found unresponsive in his vehicle, BLM employees and another fire contractor administered CPR until an air ambulance arrived, the BLM said. Hall was pronounced dead the scene.
The Grassy Mountain Fire started from lightning on Wednesday and was contained Friday after burning about 17,000 acres of grass and brush.
We send our sincere condolences to the family and co-workers of Mr. Hall.
Map of Beaver Creek Fire at 1 a.m. MDT, August 19, 2013
The Beaver Creek fire has not spread as much in the last two days as it did last week. This is due in part to the fire hitting the footprint of the 2007 Castle Rock Fire west of Ketchum, which can be seen on the map below posted on August 17.
The interior of the fire was active Sunday and there was some fire growth on the north and south ends of the fire. Red Flag conditions, including higher temperatures and wind gusts to 38 miles per hour, increased fire activity on the Beaver Creek Fire Sunday afternoon and evening. 1,150 firefighters working with 10 helicopters and 8 bulldozers expanded fire lines while large unburned areas within the fire lines and along the north and south edges of the fire sent columns of smoke 15,000 feet into the air. The fire is now 104,457 acres in size
Beaver Creek Fire, old school and new school. InciWeb photo.
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(UPDATE at 1:33 p.m. MDT, August 17, 2013)
Map of Beaver Creek fire at 2 a.m. MDT, August 17, 2013 (click to enlarge)
Extreme fire behavior occurred on the Beaver Creek Fire again on Friday, prompting additional evacuations, preevacuation warnings and the ordering of additional resources. The fire was active in the Greenhorn Gulch, Deer Creek, Dollarhide, and Baker Creek areas. The Baker Creek head of the fire produced a massive pyrocumulous column, while fire whirls, torching trees, and crown fire were visible from Hailey and the Highway 75 corridor leading to Ketchum.
At least one home, a bunkhouse and five other structures have been destroyed. However, the exact number of structures destroyed or damaged on August 15 is unknown. At least one primary residence was destroyed and there was damage to several others. The bridge on FS road 227 which connects Ketchum and Fairfield was destroyed. The loss of multiple outbuildings is certain. One Remote Automatic Weather Station (RAWS) was also destroyed.
Hot, dry weather over the last several weeks has led to numerous wildfires in central Europe, especially in Austria and southern Germany, Georg, one of our loyal readers in Germany tells us. Some of the fires are in steep terrain, he said. Thanks Georg!
He sent us some links to sites with photos and descriptions (in German) of recent wildfires. (Thankfully, the photos are in English 😉 )
Here’s one
At this fire there were about 250 firefighters and 50 soldiers.
About 680 firefighters were assigned to a third fire, along with 3 helicopters and 3 Single Engine Air Tankers.
The images below are screen grabs from the video you’ll see farther down.
Firefighters use two hoses to refill the bucket of a hovering helicopter.Firefighters use two hoses to refill the bucket of a hovering helicopter.
Google Translate took a stab at translating the description of the above video:
From the fire of pine forest between Wiener Neustadt and Weikersdorf was affected by the fire, said Alexander Nittner by the State Fire Command in Tulln: “The big challenge for the firefighters is that the wind constantly rotates, the approach is extremely difficult and already about 15 acres forest on fire. “by Thursday evening, the fire spread to an area of 20 hectares.
We found two very impressive photos of smoke columns, on Instagram, here and here, plus a third one on Facebook.
A “row” over death benefits for families of Granite Mountain 19
As the UK-based Reuters news service reported, there is a “row” over the variable benefits that the Prescott Fire Department intends to give to the families of the 19 members of their department that were killed on the Yarnell Hill Fire. The families of the six firefighters classified as full-time will receive additional financial benefits and lifetime health insurance from the city — much more than the 13 firefighters the department puts in the seasonal category.
Arizona House Speaker Andy Tobin is considering calling for a special session of the state legislature to debate a bill that would ensure that firefighters’ families, at least in this case, are fairly compensated when there are fatalities on state-protected land.
A video at Arizona Central describes the tense relationship between the families of the Granite Mountain 19 and the City of Prescott.
If you have not seen them yet, you need to view the video interviews with survivor Brendan McDonough that we posted earlier today.
Preparedness Level raised to 4
Today the National Interagency Fire Center raised the national Preparedness Level to 4, the criteria for which is:
Three or more Geographic Areas are experiencing incidents requiring Type 1 and 2 IMTs. Competition exists between Geographic Areas. Nationally, 60 percent of Type 1 and 2 IMTs and crews are committed.
Today, August 9, is later than last year for moving into PL 4. In 2012 we transitioned into PL 4 on June 27 and again on August 8.
Incident Management Team assigned to Elk Fire
Rich Harvey’s Type 1 Incident Management Team is mobilizing today to the Elk Fire on the Boise National Forest near Pine, Idaho. This morning there were four other Type 1 IMTeams and one NIMO team assigned to the following fires (Incident Commander’s name/Fire name):
Schulte/Big Windy Complex in Oregon
Kaslin/Silver Fire in California
Houseman (NIMO)/Lodgepole in Idaho
Poncin/Gold Pan Complex in Montana
McGowan/Salmon River Complex in California
There are also 14 Type 2 IMTeams committed.
Silver Fire grows to 16,000 acres in southern California
The Silver fire 60 miles east of Los Angeles has grown to 16,000 acres since it started August 7. The map below shows the fire’s location near Banning and Cabazon. More details about the fire.
Map of Silver Fire, at 10:05 p.m. PDT, August 8, 2013. The squares represent heat detected on the fire. The red line is last month’s Mountain Fire which is contained. (click to enlarge)
A quick glance at the image on the video below, before it starts, and you understand why some small children are scared when they see someone in a Smokey Bear costume.
Red Flag Warnings and Fire Weather Watches for enhanced wildfire danger have been issued by the National Weather Service for areas in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Utah, and California.
The Eastern Great Basin has moved up to Preparedness Level 4 and Alaska went to PL 3. The national PL is still 3.
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The Red Flag Warning map above was current as of 11:35 a.m. MDT on Friday. Red Flag Warnings can change throughout the day as the National Weather Service offices around the country update and revise their forecasts. For the most current data, visit this NWS site.
The Prescott Daily Courier spent about an hour talking with Brendan McDonough, the only member of the Granite Mountain Hotshots to survive the Yarnell Hill Fire; 19 of them died on June 30 in Arizona when they were overrun by the fire.
In these two videos, each about eight minutes long, he seems to be dealing pretty well with the life-changing tragedy he is still experiencing. In them, and in the article at the Daily Courier, he provides a few more details than were previously known about the events that occurred before the entrapment. He talked about how he got to his lookout location (he was closer to the fire than the crew), his interaction with the Blue Ridge Hotshots, the warning they received about the weather changing, and moving the crew’s vehicles to a safe spot.
In the second video he said:
There was no bad decision made. No one’s at fault for what happened. And I’ll never forget that day… I was there. I know what happened. And there’s a lot of other people that were there that knew what happened — and it was just an accident. These things happen. It’s horrible that it happened, but it happened. This isn’t the first time a storm has come over and killed multiple firefighters.
The first video is about the fire. The other is more about his personal story.
In a related story, a video at Arizona Central describes the tense relationship between the families of the Granite Mountain 19 and the City of Prescott.
